My heart slammed against my ribs. The cool calm I’d always maintained when I was on my own seemed to have expired. Was it because we were back in New York? Was it because Kate was by my side, and I was risking her life now as well as my own?

Whatever it was, I clutched the thumb drive between my fingers, seemingly unable to control my paranoia. The urge to take the files, my wife, and my few personal possessions and flee the city was almost too strong to resist. Instead, I slammed the safe shut and replaced the book in front of it. I paced across the room to the window, anxiously shifting my gaze up and down the street, looking for something—anything to indicate that Kate’s innocent excursion for coffee had compromised us. Parked cars. Expensive strollers. A homeless guy across the street. Everything seemed typical from this vantage, but I couldn’t calm my nerves.

“Coming here was dangerous. We should leave.”

When I turned, Kate’s eyes were glistening and her lips were tight. She was upset…and angry. “We just got here, Price.”

“We’ll find someplace more inconspicuous than our fucking apartment. I don’t know why I didn’t insist on it to begin with. Obviously this would be the first place they’d look. If they found us on an island in the middle of the Pacific, they’d find us here. Fuck!” I yanked the shade down and went to the bedroom in an angry huff.

“Price, stop. Let’s think this through.” Kate’s footsteps followed behind mine. “We need a plan. Running every time we’re spooked isn’t a plan.”

“Fine. The plan is to get away from the apartment. We’ll stay in a hotel. Someplace with cameras and enough traffic to deter anyone who might discover where we’re staying.” I tossed on the T-shirt and jeans I’d thrown off last night and went to our closet, finding all my old clothes still arranged as I’d left them. Never thought I’d go clothes shopping in my own closet a year later, but here I was.

I grabbed a few garments and returned to find Kate standing before me, her eyes wide and misty, like she was about to see her whole life washed away…again. My heart hurt to see what this was doing to her, but bending around her feelings was putting us in danger. I’d give in to her until we were in the grave, but I wanted a lifetime with her first.

“Let’s go.” My voice was clipped.

Her lip trembled, her posture no less rigid. “I can’t do this. I’m not like you. I can’t pack my life into a duffel bag. This is my home. Our home.”

I paused. We can come back later. Chelle can send us your things. Both were lies resting on my lips. Why feed her lies?

“You have twenty minutes. Then we’re taking the train to Midtown. We may not be back.”

Her tears spilled over, and I clenched my fists. I had to stay strong…for her. For us. She shook her head, her vacant stare passing over the clutter that we’d yet to clean up. We’d made a mess of this life. It was time to move on. Time to start fresh.

She walked over to the rumpled side of the bed that had been pristine before our arrival, grazing her fingertips over the bedspread. My side. Then it struck me. The apartment had become her shrine to the dead me. Asking her to leave it was asking for so much more.

I went to her, grasping her by the shoulders gently. “Kate, look at me.”

She did, her blue eyes even bluer behind her tears.

“My home is with you, Kate. Not in some shitty apartment in Brooklyn. Wherever you are is where I can be happy and whole. I lost all my possessions, my identity, my whole life. But I held on to the one thing that was most important to me—you. I had you with me, in my heart. I have you now. We have each other. No matter where we go, that’s always going to be the most important thing.”

She nodded, another tear streaming down her cheek.

I brushed it away, wishing more than anything I could reach inside her and erase all the pain I’d ever caused her.

“Price?”

“What is it, baby?” I whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

She swallowed and lifted her gaze to mine. “We can go. But…”

She tangled her fingers into my cotton shirt and pulled gently. I stepped forward, sifting my fingers into her soft locks.

“I want to make love in our bed. One last time. I want to feel you… Only you. Not all this hurt.”

I parted my lips to tell her we didn’t have time. She stole the words when she went for the button on my jeans and pushed them down. Palming my hardening cock, she dropped to her knees. I closed my eyes with a sigh when her lips came around me. I was certain that death could be knocking on our door, and I’d find a way to justify having her mouth on me just a minute more.

She moaned, and I felt the vibration all the way to my toes. Her tongue twirled and teased the tip, and I swore I couldn’t breathe until she took me fully in her mouth again. Then she did, and it was pure goddamn heaven.

“That’s it, baby. Take all of me.”

She slid her palms over the rough hair on my thighs as I gazed down at her. So much love, so much trust in those big, round eyes. Her strokes went from slow and shallow to fast and deep. The back of her throat massaged my head over and over, sending a jolt of delirious pleasure through my body each time. My abs tightened, and I felt a familiar twinge at the base of my spine.

“Oh, fuck. Kate,” I gasped. It was too good, too intense. I wouldn’t have a chance to make love to her at this rate.

Against every male instinct I possessed, I withdrew from her mouth and hauled her to her feet. Pushing her back onto the bed, I unfastened her jeans. Pulling the garment down hastily, I freed one leg. Before I could strip her the rest of the way, she sat up, cupped the nape of my neck, and kissed me fiercely, twirling her tongue against mine the way she had my cock seconds ago.

I couldn’t wait anymore. I took the space between her legs, ripped her panties to one side and plunged into her. A ragged cry left her lips as I filled her, both of us half naked.

The peace that washed across her features in that moment was one I recognized. The kind of peace that only being with her—inside her, possessing her, loving her—could bring me. A tear leaked from the corner of her eye. I bent and claimed it with my lips, reminding her how much I loved her again and again as our bodies came together.

“This is the only place I ever want to be, Kate. With you, inside you,” I whispered against her ear as I thrust deeply. “This is my home.”

“I know,” she whimpered.

More tears came, mingling with her cries of pleasure. I owned her pain as much as her pleasure now. This was us. I had to accept both.

This place hadn’t made us who we were. Our love had. Our vows. Our refusal to let each other go despite impossible circumstances. Whatever chemistry existed between two people who needed each other to survive, that same energy channeled through me and into her, binding us, electrifying every movement.

Her peace had been replaced with rapture. She was there…so close. And hell, so was I. I felt her tense around my cock, adding dizzying friction to every thrust. I was a goddamn slave to her body.

“Come for me, Kate. I want to feel you shatter around me.”

She blinked up at me, her lips pink and swollen from our kisses. “I don’t want it to end.”

I shook my head slightly. “It won’t. I promise you, baby. You and me, we’re never going to end. Come for me. Feel me.”

I banded an arm around her waist and lifted her hips against me. The new angle allowed my cock to drag over her G-spot with every thrust. She clawed at my pectorals with one hand, gripped my hair with the other, and tightened her thighs around my hips.

“I feel you… Price, my God. Ahh!”

She shook like she’d been shattered into a thousand pieces. My climax detonated in time with hers. In that moment, I was everywhere—all around her, inside her, collecting her shattered pieces so I could bring us back together, whole again, where everything was right. If only for a moment.

I struggled to catch my breath and regain control of my brain. I didn’t want to rush reality back in so soon, though, so I stayed nestled inside of Kate, savoring the little aftershocks. I breathed her in, tasted the salt on her skin. I sighed heavily before lifting off her. She lay limp on the bed, face flushed, skin slick, with one pant leg still hanging on and her panties a ripped, wet mess.

I bit my lip, because the sight was making me hard again already. I didn’t want to stop. Fuck, I wasn’t going to either. Stripping her jeans and panties off completely, I tugged her toward the edge of the bed. She widened her eyes but didn’t argue when I spread her knees wide and sank my fingers into her soaked pussy.

My release was still warm and slick inside her, easing my strokes. Few things were as satisfying as coming inside her. One day we’d do it with so much more purpose. I was determined to make good on that promise. If we couldn’t have a family, I’d have failed her.

“I’m going to give you a baby one day.”

She smiled weakly. “I know.”

I couldn’t decode her expression. Didn’t know if it was sadness or faith or regret, or maybe she was too wiped out from her earlier orgasm to give the reaction much force. Uneasy with my inability to read her as easily as I normally could, I deepened my penetration. She closed her eyes and arched into my touch. I was going to make her scream again. And then I was going to fuck her until I forgot what a mess we were in.

---

After a shower and another few mouthfuls of The Kaphi House’s delicious bread, Kate packed two bags—a hiking backpack that we’d used on a few summer trips to the White Mountains, and the carry-on she’d traveled with to Leiloa. I studied her carefully, noting how she paused between the two bags before placing something. I could hear her silent choices. One bag held the essentials, the other held everything else. Everything else that could be left behind if need be. The process took twenty-six minutes.

We left the apartment without a word. No goodbye. No tears. Kate simply locked the door, and we made our way down to the street. I paused at the doorway, peering through the window before pulling my hat—an old ball cap I’d found in the closet—down on my forehead. With sunglasses, it wouldn’t render me unrecognizable, but it would obscure my face if anyone was looking for it. Kate had done the same, tucking her long blond hair into a twist under a much more stylish fedora.

We left the building, and Kate took the first steps toward the subway station.

“Wait. Give me one second.” I jogged across to the street, stopping in front of a pile of dirty gray blankets and newspaper.

The homeless man I’d spotted through the window earlier looked up at me with a toothless grin. His eyes and smile were exceptionally bright, an unexpected contrast against the materials that surrounded him.

“How can I help you, son?”

“I was wondering if you’d seen anything unusual around here the past couple days.”

He pursed his lips, the expression almost cartoonish in the way it deepened the grooves on his thin face. “Unusual?”

“Like anyone coming around that may have seemed suspicious.”

He tilted his head back and forth, like he was contemplating. I had a stronger feeling that he was holding out on me. I lowered to my haunches and took out my wallet.

“How much?”

He let out a loud cackle and patted his knee. “How about I tell you, and you give me what you think it’s worth?”

I hesitated a moment and then folded my wallet again. “Okay. We’ll do it your way.”

“My name’s Joseph, by the way.”

I took his outstretched hand and shook it firmly. “It’s good to meet you, Joseph.”

“And you are?” He lifted an eyebrow and his crooked smile was back.

“I’m looking for information, Joseph. Can you help me?”

He waved his hand and looked upward. “Sometimes people are so busy looking at the ground, they never look up at the sky.”

I followed his gaze. Nothing but gray sky and the uneven lines of brownstone rooftops above us.

“What does that mean?”

He pointed up, past my shoulder. “Right up there on the fourth floor is where I saw them first a couple weeks ago. No one ever seems to look that high. I was on the other side of the street. Café opens up early, and I like the smell of it.” He inhaled deeply like he was reliving that first inhale of coffee in the morning.

I empathized, but right now I was more inclined to shake him violently for the information he was spoon-feeding me. “Who, Joseph? What did you see?”

He lifted his chin toward Kate on the other side of the street. “She’s pretty. Gets me coffee sometimes, so I notice when she comes and goes. I noticed every time she walked by, they’d be by the window. Then they’d disappear and show up again, speeding by me like they had someplace to go all of a sudden. Couple guys. Tall. Hair so blond it could be white. They’ve been watching her. I couldn’t tell you why, though.”

My heart was speeding. My adrenaline kicked up full force. I opened my wallet and threw a few hundred dollars in Joseph’s lap. “Did they see me? I got here a couple days ago.”

Joseph smiled broadly again. “I’ll let you know in a few minutes. Soon as you two mosey down the street, they’ll either be right behind you, or they won’t.”

Fuck.

I didn’t thank him. Didn’t throw more money his way though he likely deserved it. I raced across the street, grabbed Kate’s arm. “We need to go. Now.”